Men can be victims too...

It is quite disturbing that millions of women have to endure hell in the hands of men. From mental abuse, tongue lashing, career choice restriction and physical assult. The truth is: "Women are not lagging behind in the assult race..."

Men by their biological, emotional and social makeup are majorly considered the superior gender, and this makes any crime men commit against women be blown way out of proportion. But the fact remains that men are also victims of domestic violence.

Male victims of domestic violence can and are frequently victims of abuse in the home, either at the hands of their female or, in the case of same-sex relationships, their male partner. Abuse is a control issue - abusers believe they have the right to manipulate, control and humilate another person, and this belief is not only held by some men but also by some women.


A man from Washington state---
I am 6'2" and about 200 lbs. I have a solid background in wrestling and have dabbled in TKD and Judo. I am also a DV survivor. I am NOT a "victim"! ... I was awakened by her screaming as she came through the bedroom door swinging a baseball bat. She brought it down across my legs. I managed to avoid most of the blow and took the bat away from her by twisting it out of her hands. She went to the kitchen and got a marble rolling pin.


A lot of male victims of abuse however, have great difficulty defining it as such. This is partially due to the image our western society generally has of Man. Men are often thought of as strong, domineering and macho. Boys, even at a young age, are taught that it is unmanly to cry ("big boys don't cry"). To many, the idea of a grown man being frightened or vulnerable is a taboo, the idea of a man - usually physically the stronger - of being battered, ludicrous. Hence many male victims of abuse may feel "less of a man" for suffering abuse, feel as though they are in some way not manly enough and ought to have the ability to prevent the abuse.

The reality though is that even if a man is physically attacked by their wives or partners, many men will take a beating rather than hitting back to defend themselves and risk harming their attacker, and even if they do, they are aware that they then risk being accused of being an abuser themselves. But abuse is not always physical, and a lot of men, in common with many women, face daily emotional, verbal and psychological abuse in silence for years, their self-esteem being slowly eroded away, more and more isolated from those around them.


If you are being abused

If you are a man and are being abused or have recently escaped an abusive relationship, please know that you are not alone. There are many of you out there, and many, like you, feel as though you are the only one to experience this sort of abuse. It is okay to be frightened, confused and hurt. Someone you love, care about and trust has broken that trust, turned against you and hurt you.

You don't have to suffer in silence, there are agencies and people who do care and can offer you help, support and advice. Check out the helplines and links at the bottom of this page which are specifically designed with you in mind. They are there to help you. Just because you are a man does not mean you are impervious to pain!

If you are no longer in the abusive relationship, know that you can 'get over this', but you may find that it still gives you nightmares and makes it difficult establishing a new relationship, learning to open up and trust someone again. It may help to talk to a counsellor about what happened and how you feel.

Please don't worry if you are disbelieved or ridiculed by some of the people you approach. Sadly many people do not want to or cannot (due to their own insecurities) believe that men can and do suffer abuse, remember that it is their personal problem if they don't believe you, not yours. It does not make your experiences any less painful or devastating or valid. Try to disregard their attitude and try someone else. You will find many people who DO take you seriously and can understand what you have suffered.

If you are frightened that your partner will hurt you further, you have the same rights as any other person, whether man or woman, under the law for protection. The same orders to prevent male on female violence are also there to protect you. Insist on your rights to be free from fear and live in safety. In the same way, the Family Courts have a responsibility to take ALL allegations of Domestic Abuse into account when considering residency and contact orders, whether they are against the father or the mother.

And finally, please realise that it is not your fault. You do not deserve to be hit, to be insulted and ridiculed, to be touched intimately if you have asked not to be, to be treated like a doormat, to be threatened, attacked with a weapon, shamed in front of your mates, told what to do when and with whom. You do not deserve to be abused in any way, shape or form.

They all call for Blood!

While the Koran Calls for Violence, The Bible Is Even Worse … Calling for Genocide

Christians and Jews rightly point out that the Koran is a violent text which calls on Muslims to attack “unbelievers”.

But they fail to see that the Bible is at least as violent.

Religion historian Philip Jenkins decided to compare the brutality quotient of the Quran and the Bible.

“Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible,” Jenkins says.

Jenkins is a professor at Penn State University and author of two books dealing with the issue: the recently published Jesus Wars, and Dark Passages , which has not been published but is already drawing controversy.

Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

“By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane,” he says. “Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide.”

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: “And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them,” God says through the prophet Samuel. “But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

“In other words,” Jenkins says, “Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God’s law if you do not.”

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

***

El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

“All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad,” he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf “are going to hell.”

***

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence. Whether they can evolve out of it is another thing altogether.

Indeed, the Nazis, the Norwegian mass murderer and many others have committed terrorism in the name of Christianity.   Adolph Hitler professed to be a Christian, and churches in Nazi Germany mainly supported the Nazis.

There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi and the whirling Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian sects.

In the Old Testament, the Jews were always smiting one tribe or another into oblivion.  Some Jews still commit terrorism. For example, Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

A prominent Jewish leader said that Jews used terror during the formation of Israel.  And some still call for genocide against the other guy.


Indeed, even fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists murder “non-believers”.

As NPR notes, murder of outsiders is called for in both the Koran and the Bible.  So the question isn’t whether you’re on one “team” or the other … it’s whether you’re mature enough to evolve past the violent thousands-year-old worldview and act peacefully.

Most Muslims condemn Islamic terrorism, just as most Christians condemn terrorism by fundamentalist Christians and most Jews condemn terrorism by fundamentalist Jews.

As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck – who served as the United States Army’s Assistant Chief Psychiatry and Neurology Consultant to the Surgeon General of the Army, and held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel – explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity.  Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development.

Indeed, a Christian fundamentalist who kills others in the name of religion is much more similar to a Muslim – or Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist – fundamentalist who kills others in the name of his religion than to a Christian who peacefully fights for justice and truth, helps the poor, or serves to bring hope to the downtrodden.

Religion, Science and Common Sense 1

I really can't believe some people are still gullible to the extent that they would drink petrol polluted water because their pastor says it is blessed water or pray right beside a corpse that died of ebola because their religion demands they pray beside their deceased loved ones.

It is fine if pastors or Islamic clerics decide to organize prayers for the followers of their religion. And it is also fine if such religious leaders use everyday items like soap, water and snacks as prayer items because most people need physical things to hold unto. It is more like our indigenous beliefs which provide us with "lesser gods" which are used as points of contact to the Almighty God.

But consider this scenario:

"In some areas in Lagos, there are lots of pipe line leakages which result in extreme water pollution. Nobody needs to tell the people to buy drinking water, it is common sense. But a pastor in the same area decides to dig a well and called it 'The sweet water'. So every sunday, the ushers would fill small bottles with the polluted water and the pastor would bless and give to the people ro drink. Of course, they pay for the sweet water. The same people whose common sense told not to drink polluted water now drink it all because their pastor calls it sweet water."

Now here are the list of things that can happen to you when you ingest polluted water:

1. Cancer: Long-term exposure to benzene, the most toxic component of fuel oil, is known to cause leukemia.

2. Reproductive Issues.

3. Organ Damage: ingestion of petrol polluted water can cause problems with the Liver, Kidney and the Nervous System.

The people whose common sense told not to drink polluted water might lack western education and not know about the above listed effects, but common sense makes it all simple for them. But for the educated folks, science adds more credibility to common sense.

Some months ago, when the Ebola virus disease was at its peak in Nigeria, I went through an article online relating to how human corpse are disposed. I was really fascinated about some of the methods. I personally favour cremation and other non-traditional means because it prevents epidemics related to improper burial and land wastage. That is common sense spiced with some science.

So, I sent the link to a friend of mine who is a muslim and asked for his opinion. His first remark was: "My religion is against these wordly means of burial." Then I asked him, "What if you died of Ebola? Will you still go for the traditional burial knowing fully well the health implications it can pose to others?" All he kept hammering on was the fact that Allah will never make him a victim of Ebola. So he shied away from the real issue on hand and went all defensive, hiding behind the false wall of his religion. So I decided to let him be.

But I still can't comprehend how an educated person would put all logical and scientific facts aside just to satisfy his blind religious obligations, even if it means harming others. And that is the state of our peoples' mind. They would defy all common sense and scientific evidence just to satisfy some religious laws that were postulated ages ago. Even the supreme most modern religion centres around gives we humans the brain and the ability to decide what is wrong or right. These God given ability is not meant to be manipulated by some religious freaks. It is meant to guide us right.

One piece of advice: "If your religion demands that you ingest cyanide or arsenic for some spiritual reasons, just don't kill others!"

Money, Money and more Money

A friend invited me to his church some months ago. He claimed they serve the real God and that worshiping in his church gives a sort of spiritual ecstacy, so I decided to give him the benefit of doubt.

So I was in the church, waiting for the spiritual highness. Although the praise and worship sessions were really cool, it was nothing close to what the choir in my church would produce on their bad days. Still waiting...

Then came the sermon which was centred around Blessing, Prosperity, Success and Financial breakthroughs. The preacher would do good as a motivational speaker as all he kept hammering on were Business Ideas. There is nothing wrong if a pastor decides to give certain money-making ideas and suggestions to his congregation, absolutely nothing wrong. But the very moment you realize that a one hour sermon in a church is all about money, money and more money, then you've got to check if the book on the pulpit is not a Business Encyclopedia.

So after the sermon came the most important event during the service: "Offering Time". A group of ushers went round, giving each person a small envelope with the inscription: "TITHES". I told the usher that I can't pay tithe because I am still a student. Yet she insisted that I pay my tithe, no matter what I do or how much I earn.

Then something happened. Two male ushers pushed 7 offering collection boxes to the front of the congregation. Each box held a label.

1. Normal Offering.

2. Tithe

3. Evangelism Offering

4. Mission House Welfare Offering

5. Church and Mission House maintenance Offering

6. Weekly Testimony Offering.

7. Prayer Offering.

For the prayer offering, anybody who wants the man of God to pray for him/her would write the prayer points in a paper and put the paper in a sealed envelope with some money.

I honestly don't see anything wrong if the people give these so called "sowing to God" out of their free will. But when the man of God mandates that everyone who wants to sow to God must stay right in front of the pulpit for prayer, then you know something is wrong. Anybody who does not have the means of sowing to God will be left isolated, away from the people. Those who are left will be seen as the less-privileged...

But in the Christian Holy Book: "The Holy Bible", the places of worship were not structured that way. When it comes to offering contribution, all they had in the temple was a small offering box in which people who wants to give out of their own free will can give without creating a scene. And even Jesus even made mention of a poor widow who gave so little but so much because it was all she had and she gave it from her heart.

It is just so unfortunate that the real purpose of the Christian Church has been defeated and the mission now is all about the love of what the Holy Bible labelled the root of all evil.

Here I go...

Hello all,

So here I go...

This is my first post here, so I hope I make a great first impression. This blog has been existing for a couple of years, empty though. Now that I've decided to add contents, here is a simple breakdown of what you should expect.

1. My thoughts - Stuffs going through my mind, and believe me, my mind wanders a lot.

2. Religion, Science and Common Sense - Now this is where the real disparity lies. Trying to find a no man's land between religion, science and common sense can get really messy. So fasten your seatbelt.

3. Poems and Stories.

That's it. Although some other things might pop up at a time or the other.

Even if we don't get to agree all the time, we can always have a compromise. All you need is a liberal mind, like uhm mine.
Enjoy.